


Restless

by TheMewsAtTen



Series: Tomorrow [5]
Category: God's Own Country, God's Own Country (2017)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-01 19:43:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15150461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMewsAtTen/pseuds/TheMewsAtTen
Summary: John is even more grumpy than usual. Gheorghe thinks he knows why. But is he right?The fifth in the six-part series 'Tomorrow'. I will warn you - it's a long 'un, this one. And fluffy.I don't own this world or the characters in it - I write for my own amusement and not for profit, and no copyright infringement is intended.Find me on tumblr @TheMewsAtTenEdited (slightly) on 6/7/18





	Restless

Gheorghe rolled his shoulders and flexed his fingers, bracing himself for the evening to come.

He would really have preferred not to go at all. A cup of tea on the sofa, listening to the wind whistling outside, John’s head resting in his lap as he dozed . . . _that_ was what Gheorghe looked forward to on a Friday night. 

But he _had_ to get John out of the house and off the farm for a few hours. 

It had only dawned on him a few days ago, when Robyn had called by to coax them into the town for her flat-warming party - it had been at least two weeks since John had gone anywhere further than the top of their hill. 

Gheorghe had done the shopping himself, Deirdre had gone with Martin to his check-up at the hospital . . . 

Yes. It had _definitely_ been two weeks. Maybe more. 

That explained why John had been so difficult the last few days. Gheorghe was sure of it. It all seemed so obvious now, like everything had clicked into place. 

The realisation may have seemed trivial to anyone else, but it had rattled Gheorghe. He'd started to worry that their life on the farm was becoming unhealthy and claustrophobic. John had been irritable lately, distracted, his temper even more hair-trigger than it normally was. He’d snapped at Deirdre a few times. She’d been unusually patient with him, as if she too had noticed that he wasn’t himself. She had started to walk away from his sullenness and his tantrums, rather than snapping back threats of a ‘clip around the earhole’ in her time-honoured way.

When he and Gheorghe were alone together he was on edge and over-sensitive, quick to take offence at everything Gheorghe said, taking things the wrong way, reading too much into the tiniest, fleeting remark. He’d sit in brooding silence until he drifted off to sleep on the couch and had to be cajoled into climbing the stairs to bed. When they worked around the farm, Gheorghe would look up at John, only to catch him watching him, intent, his brow furrowed in thought. His eyes would snap away when he found Gheorghe returning his stare. He’d blush, huffing out a surly, defensive _“What?!”_ before returning to whatever he had been doing, even crankier than before.

He wouldn’t tell Gheorghe what was wrong, and Gheorghe knew by now that trying to force it out of him would only mean coming to blows. John would tell him in his own good time, and not a moment before.

But he had been quietly terrified. Terrified that John had begun to regret choosing to be with him. Terrified that the horrible, inevitable moment when John would end things with him was only ever just around the next corner.

He’d surprised them both when he’d accepted Robyn’s invitation without even pretending to think about it. Gheorghe wasn’t spontaneous. He was always the one who thought things through. But that realisation about John had been fresh in his mind, and it had seemed like a good idea at the time. 

Good idea or not, Gheorghe hadn’t been looking forward to it. And now, hastily getting ready to leave for the half an hour car journey to Robyn’s new place in the town, his stomach was doing somersaults. The thought of having to make conversation with people he didn’t know still made his skin itch, even now. His anxieties about his English, and his foreignness, left his mouth dry and his palms sweaty.

 _It’s important for John to get out, to see people other than us_ , he reminded himself, taking a steadying breath. Besides, Gheorghe spent very little time with anyone other than the Saxbys himself these days. He was sure his nerves at the prospect of socialising with people were at least in part down to how out of practice he was.

So that was that - it would do them _both_ good. It would get John out of his own head for a few hours; show him that Gheorghe didn’t need or want to hold him in an iron grip, to keep him to himself or isolate him from other people. It would show him that he could have Gheorghe _and_ his independence at the same time; that having John in his life was all Gheorghe needed to make him happy. That there was no need for him to feel fenced in.

Gheorghe tried to dredge up some confidence as he shuffled busily around their bedroom, moving around John in the cramped space, reaching for his wallet and phone and his shoes from the floor next to the wardrobe. 

At least it was the kind of party where they could blend in; only talk to people they wanted to talk to. Avoid the ones they didn’t. It wouldn’t exactly be intimate. Eyes would hardly be on them and, even if they were, they could leave whenever they wanted to. And it was _definitely_ a better solution to John’s cabin fever than a drink at the local pub. They would _both_ go to great lengths to avoid that dank, oppressive dump, and the bad blood - and bad memories - it held for them.

“Sure about this?” John murmured at him as he buttoned up one of his smarter shirts. “Rob might be salt of the earth but some of her mates are right stuck-up sorts.”

Gheorghe definitely _wasn’t_ sure about this. But he wasn’t about to tell John that right now. He had been dressed for ages, and he knew damn well that John was only taking so long getting ready because he was stalling for time, trying to find excuses not to go. He'd been livid when Gheorghe accepted the invitation, but then that was typical of John. Gheorghe was sure he would enjoy it when he got there; that it would do him the world of good.

“I think that we need to get out of the house for a few hours,” he answered softly. “I think that you . . . need a break.”

John turned on his heel to face Gheorghe, wrapping his arms around his neck and pressing himself against him. His top buttons were still undone, the porcelain skin of his chest on display. Gheorghe groaned inwardly. He wanted so much to just get John naked and into bed instead of spending the evening with a load of self-assured recent graduates he didn’t know. He could feel John’s cock beginning to harden in his jeans, an unspoken suggestion of an evening spent doing something far more enjoyable than making small talk with a load of city folk.

He took a moment. A moment to just enjoy _right now_.

Their bedroom was where Gheorghe felt safest. It was far too small, of course, the decor dated and the furniture mismatched and rickety and he loved it - really _loved_ it.

Their bed was a double now, and they’d moved another chest of drawers into the room, so there was a lot less space than there had been before - and there hadn't been a huge amount _then_. And John was as untidy as ever.

Gheorghe thought back to the early days when he’d slept in the caravan out front. He had known moving into the house with John was going to mean big changes in their relationship, that the 'honeymoon' period would end, in a way, as they were forced into close quarters like this. He didn’t wish for those days back. He just wished he could give John the space he seemed to crave sometimes. Gheorghe felt like he was smothering John, fraying his nerves without ever really meaning to. 

“Break from what, like?” John asked him after a while, kissing his neck.

“I just think that we need space.”

John froze. “You mean _you_ need space from _me_ ,” he scowled, retreating as if he’d been kicked. 

“No.” Gheorghe said quickly. He pulled John back, wrestling him to himself, fighting against the arms that were crossed stubbornly in front of him. “If I meant that, I would not be coming with you. So _stop sulking_. . .”

The corner of John’s mouth twitched upwards in a smile he couldn’t quite stifle, the way it always did when Gheorghe indulged him like this. 

Gheorghe was utterly confused by it all. John had been so out of sorts lately. He’d thought a change of scene would make him happy. Instead, he was bloody-mindedly determined to see it as some kind of rejection. Gheorghe could have roared with despair sometimes, convinced that he would never completely understand John, that the mind of the man he had fallen for would always be a total mystery to him.

“Would you like me to drive?” he offered, reaching for an opportunity to change the subject. 

John hesitated, then shook his head. “Nah, I’ll drive. Early start tomorrow. Long day.”

Gheorghe gave him a knowing smile. John was right, of course. The office workers and media interns and bright young things who’d be there tonight could let their hair down knowing they could take it easy tomorrow. _Their_ Saturday mornings involving nothing more strenuous than black coffee and the warmth of their duvets.

No such luck for him and John. Weekends meant nothing in their line of work. 

“For me too. Every day is an early start. Every day is a long day. And I do not mind driving, if you would like me to,” he reassured him.

“No, you’re alright.” John shook his head, firmly this time. “It’ll be . . . it’ll give me an excuse not to take a drink, like . . .” he tailed off, fiddling with his cuffs.

Gheorghe just nodded, deciding, as he seemed to a lot lately, that it was better to let it go.

John hadn’t sobered up miraculously the moment Gheorghe had come back with him from Scotland. His drinking was still a sore point between them. He was handling everything much better now, but he did still cave in to the occasional binge that left him feeling angry at himself and guilty, and left Gheorghe feeling powerless. He sometimes wished he had the heart to give John ‘The Ultimatum’ -  _me or the drink_. But he didn’t, because he couldn’t mean it, not really. He couldn't ever see himself leaving John because he hit the stuff a bit hard from time to time. The bad times really _were_ occasional reactions to bad days now, and he could see that John was making an effort. Gheorghe was bursting with pride, really. He was proud of how hard John had worked to look his problem in the eye, to accept it and stare it down. 

No. There was no way it was going to come between them, not after the superhuman effort John had been making.

Gheorghe knew that there was a time when being drunk wouldn’t have stopped him getting behind the wheel, for a start . . .

John finished buttoning up his shirt, leaning back in to press a languid, easy kiss to Gheorghe’s lips, dipping his head to lick at his earlobe and nuzzle at his neck. Gheorghe's heart thumped in his chest.

“You smell nice,” John said, his voice muffled by Gheorghe’s skin.

“I do not usually smell nice?” Gheorghe shot back with a grin.

“Give over. We run a farm,” John chuckled as Gheorghe gave him a playful shove, faking a scandalised expression. “Yeah you do always smell nice. You smell like _you_. You just smell different nice just now. It’s . . . “ John groaned, his hot breath ghosting again over Gheorghe’s neck.

For what felt like the fiftieth time in the last half an hour, Gheorghe wished they could just curl up in bed, their bodies pressed together, taking each other to the edge, hot and slick and . . . 

He pulled away from John, growling with frustration, willing his traitorous cock to stop trying to overrule his head.

“You are ready?” he asked gruffly.

“As I’ll ever be,” John grouched back, rolling his eyes.

 

\- - - - - - - - - -

 

It wasn’t much after 7pm, but Robyn had already been pretty drunk by the time they’d arrived. She’d squealed with excitement when she opened the door to them, pulling them both in for a rib-busting hug. It was awkward. Robyn was nearly a foot shorter than both of them, swaying on her feet and gripping at them while John stood rigid with his die-hard reluctance to touch. 

Gheorghe found Robyn loud and disarmingly straight-talking, but he’d slowly developed a bit of a soft spot for her. She was stern and fierce, and she'd stuck it out with John when so many other people had walked away from him. She took none of his bullshit, and put in more than her fair share of legwork to be his friend. Gheorghe worshipped her a little bit just for caring the way she did.

When he’d first met her, he had wondered whether John knew how blessed he was to have such a strong friend. It didn’t take long for him to realise that John was well aware of how lucky he was. But this was John. He didn’t know how to talk about it. He did wish he could thank her, Gheorghe knew that much. John was ferociously protective of Robyn, and she was just as shielding of him. You just wouldn't necessarily know it to look at them . . .

Gheorghe had patted her back gently as she pressed herself to them both. She smelled of a deep, spicy perfume and cigarette smoke and something faintly sweet, which he suspected had something to do with the bright pink drink she was gripping. 

Within less than an hour of their arrival, the flat was heavy with the smell of smoke and bodies, overpowering after-shave and hairspray and beery breath. Robyn was laughing uproariously from the kitchen, having sashayed off, leaving them both in the living room at the mercy of two girls John had gone to school with.

Slender and brightly dressed with poker-straightened blonde hair and flawless make-up, Katie and Emma were noisily regaling John with stories about other old school-friends, a seemingly endless litany of names Gheorghe didn’t know and people he’d never met. John was nodding along politely, his wish that he was pissed out of his mind and numbed to the dullness of the conversation practically written across his face. 

Painfully aware that he was unable to contribute anything helpful to the conversation, Gheorghe risked a discreet glance around the room. It was all very Robyn - colourful rugs and walls covered in stylishly monochrome cityscape photography, attractive and clean, even if it did feel a bit like a showroom at Ikea. 

As he took in the room, his eyes came to rest on a tall, thin, twenty-something guy with black hair and pristine, pale skin, slouching casually in the opposite corner. Slugging from a beer bottle, he stared openly, directly at John. It was a strange look; more sad and mournful than hostile. It was a look that left Gheorghe oddly conscious of John’s life before they’d met.

It occurred to him that the flat was probably _full_ of people who had been in John’s life for years and years; people who had known him and played a part in making him who he was before he and Gheorghe even knew of each other’s existences.

He suddenly felt hot and dizzy, overwhelmed with that familiar sense of being alien and alone. The guy’s eyes were screwed obsessively to John, and while Katie and Emma seemed welcoming enough to him personally, there was a streak of cruelty in the way they talked about their ex schoolmates. The whole atmosphere made Gheorghe feel like he didn’t quite _fit_. 

He moved away from the three of them, smiling an apology at the girls and giving John’s arm a gentle reassuring squeeze when he looked worriedly at Gheorghe.

“I just need some air. I will not be long,” he soothed, leaving before John had a chance to follow.

He knew that he would sulk later at being abandoned to that pair of gossips but, right now, Gheorghe knew that he had to get out.

Barely five minutes later, he found himself standing outside the front door to the block of flats, rocking on his heels and dragging with deep relief on a cigarette. 

He startled as someone barrelled clumsily out of the door, stumbling a little. It was the guy who’d been staring at John upstairs. He had been looking for Gheorghe; that much was clear from the way his eyes landed on him, raking him, his lips curling into a smile. It was obvious he was well on the way to being quite drunk.

“Don’t think you need to come out ‘ere for a fag, y’know,” he said in the same Yorkshire accent Gheorghe had been slowly developing an ear for in the last few months. “Don’t think Rob gives a shit ‘bout folk smoking inside.”

Gheorghe gave him a polite smile. “I was very hot, and it was becoming loud. I thought I should get some air.".

The guy looked at Gheorghe’s cigarette and smirked, his eyebrows lifting. 

Gheorghe shrugged sheepishly, shaking his head at the absurdity of it. It was a very _British_ thing to do, he realised - claiming to need 'fresh air', when in fact what he needed was a nice quiet smoke.

“Aye it is manic in there. You’re . . . um . . . I’m . . . you’re Saxby’s bloke, yeah? Johnny Saxby? I went to school wi’ him. Matthew. Matt. Matt Warley.” 

Matt offered his hand to Gheorghe. Gheorghe shook it, considering him carefully. He was talkative in a nervous kind of way, but exuded the numbing confidence and bravado that came after a few drinks. When he looked into his face, the twinkle in his eyes and the lopsided smile confirmed that he was probably flirting a bit, but only in that casual way people did when they both knew it wouldn’t come to anything.

Gheorghe felt more flattered than awkward.

“Yes, Gheorghe,” he said, his tone open, still holding Matt’s hand, trying to be polite but being careful not to flirt back too much. It was difficult; Matt  _was_ appealing in a youthful, willowy kind of way. But he wasn’t like John. He had none of John’s strength, his brooding sexiness. Gheorghe realised with a jolt that, even though he’d only been gone ten minutes or so, he _missed_ John - that ten minutes without him was ten minutes too long. 

Matt just nodded. They both understood that he had known _exactly_ who Gheorghe was.

“Haven’t seen Saxby in bloody years. I went up to uni in Dundee, I’m only stoppin’ for a few weeks, catchin’ up wi’ folk, y’know. Then I’m headin’ back.”

Gheorghe didn’t know what to say in response. Life with the Saxbys had left him unused to people being so forthcoming. Robyn was just about the only person he knew who was outgoing like this, and for all that he’d grown fond of her he also found her exhausting a lot of the time, too. He wasn't sure he had the energy for someone like Matt right now.

“Scotland is very beautiful,” he offered back weakly.

“Aye it’s nice. You been then?”

“Yes, I . . . I spent a few weeks there recently. I had some work, in the Borders.”

“But you didn’t stay?”

Gheorghe shifted his weight from one leg to the other. He didn’t like thinking about his time in Scotland, how the beauty of it all had just reminded him of Yorkshire and of John and how desolate he had felt without him. He certainly didn’t want to get into all that with someone he’d just met. Someone he knew nothing about.

“I, no, I . . . John was _here_ ,” he said quietly, hoping that would bring the subject to an end.

They stood in awkward silence, time stretching out between them, thick and elastic.

Gheorghe offered Matt a cigarette. He accepted it in a way that felt more like an attempt to break the tension than a genuine desire for a smoke, leaning in for a light and nodding his thanks.

“So . . . you went to school with John, yes? And also with Robyn?” Gheorghe asked, trying to ride out the crawling pause in conversation.

“Aye, we were all in same year. Saw Emma and Katie had him cornered when I came out. Think they’re curious 'bout how he’s changed, like. Looks like he’s seriously mellowed.” Matt sucked hard on his cigarette. “Wanted to say hello to him but . . . well, it’s tricky. See, me and Saxby, we never really got on.”

“No?” 

Matt’s expression darkened. “Nah,” he smiled ruefully, kneeling to tap cigarette ash into the gutter. “I ain’t proud of it but to tell truth I made life hard for him when we were at school.”

He looked directly at Gheorghe as if he were sizing him up - tempted to unburden himself but unsure how Gheorghe would react. He trembled a little, and even though it was nearly 9pm and they were well into autumn, Gheorghe didn’t think it had much to do with the cold.

Matt seemed braced for something.

“Pathetic, really. I . . . y’see . . . I were mad about him, so I picked fights wi’ him and that, teased him, y’know the kind of thing. He . . . he were the first bloke I . . . I made his life a misery ‘cos I were mad about him. That’s daft that, eh? Way folk do that sometimes, to folk they like. He were gorgeous, all quiet and clever and that, really stunnin’, y'know. Then one time I tried to kiss him. We were sixteen, at a party, first time bein’ that drunk, I were fuckin' hammered, I just swooped right in . . . stupid . . . I mean, no wonder he were shocked after the way I’d treated him at school. He were how I knew I were gay. I’d been crazy for him since we were fourteen. First bloke I proper loved, he were, and I didn’t know how to handle it. Teenage boy and that, y’know. If he’d’ve been a girl and I’d been straight it would have been tuggin’ ponytails, stuff like that,” he laughed, but it came out hollow. “So he turned me down. And it hurt. So I hurt him, even worse than before . . .”

Gheorghe must have looked as horrified as he felt. Matt's eyes mirrored his shock, the conclusion Gheorghe had jumped to dawning on his face.

“Oh Christ, no! Not that . . . _God_ , no. I backed off when he said no. Fuck I’d never have tried to force . . . _no._ I left him be. But when we got back to school, the stuff I called him, things I said about him. About his family, how his mam had left and that. About him being . . . well, we all _knew_ he weren’t into girls. He weren’t out in everyone’s faces. It were known, like, not talked about that much, but we sort of knew and he just wore it all cool and easy, y’know? You know how he is. He were just into guys and he wore it so easily and I hated him a bit 'cos then there was me, I were confused and I hated _myself._ My parents didn’t speak to me for months after I came out . . .” He stared into the middle distance for a while, scuffing his toes against the pavement.

Gheorghe was blindsided, his feelings knotted and balled up. Anger at Matt for being one of the people who had made John so distant and insecure, and for coming out here and vomiting all of it onto him, this big deal, as if it were meaningless. Pity for the confused teenager he had been when he lashed out at John because he’d fallen in love for the first time, with a boy, and he was scared. And jealousy. Burning jealousy at knowing that he had tried to kiss and touch John before Gheorghe had.

“It’s, I dunno, ‘cos I don’t know whether to apologise ‘cos then it’s bringin’ it up, y’know? But I want to . . . I’ve never stopped feelin’ bad about it, and I want him to know. That I’m really, really sorry. God this must be right weird for you, me tellin’ you all this. You don’t know me. Sorry. Think I’m a bit pissed.”

“He has never spoken about this,” Gheorghe offered simply, at a loss for anything more to say.

Matt just nodded, dejected. And in that moment Gheorghe knew. _You’re still a bit in love with him_ , he thought. _That’s what the staring was about inside. You’re talking about this because for you it’s still here and now. You never got over it. It’s not just the guilt. You never got over him._

They both jumped as the door of the building slammed shut behind them.

“Right, you fit to leave? I’m done in and we’re up early tomorrow.” John’s voice strained with emotion.

Gheorghe didn’t know how long he’d been there before slamming the door, but he was pale, tense, staring unflinchingly at Matt like he wanted to tear strips off him and was wondering where to start.

“How’re you goin’, Saxby?” Matt asked, plastering on a smile, feigning confidence. 

John stared back, cold and silent, before turning and setting off at a brisk walk towards where they had parked up earlier. 

Gheorghe smiled apologetically at Matt, feeling genuinely sorry for him somehow; for all his pretence, he looked thoroughly pathetic.

Matt just met his smile and returned it, sadly, as if he’d known in his heart that trying to make peace was always going to be a long-shot. “Well, it were nice chattin’ wi’ you, Gheorghe. You’re both . . . you’re dead lucky. Take care of him, yeah?” he stubbed out his cigarette before turning and staggering back into the building, not waiting for an answer.

Gheorghe ran to catch up to John. “Hey. Stop. I know you do not like him but you did not have to be . . . he was just being friendly.”

John sneered, not slowing down. “Aye I could see that.”

“What do you mean?” Gheorghe had to walk at full pace just to keep up with him.

“Nowt.”

“John, if you have something you want to say . . .’

“Looked like you were enjoyin’ it well enough from where I were standin’, s’all I’m saying . . .”

“Enjoying it?”

“Him. Fuckin’ _Warley_. Saw he didn’t waste much time followin’ you outside like that.”

“Matt?”

John rolled his eyes. “Aye, _Matt_. You were all over him. He’s a dickhead, just so’s you know. Nasty piece of work.”

“All over him? This is not fair. I was just speaking to him. He told me . . . he feels bad about the past, I think that he followed me outside because he wanted to talk about it and did not know how. He was trying to find a way to say that he is sorry. That is all.”

John sneered, pausing at the driver’s side door of the Land Rover, fiddling with the keys. “He were tryin’ to find a way to cause trouble more like. He were lookin’ at you like he’d a good mind to suck you off where you stood. No wonder you jumped at the chance to come here. Why stay stuck on’t farm wi’ me when you could be knockin’ around here keeping your options open . . .”

“John, you know I would not do this to you,” Gheorghe was aware that he was raising his voice, feeling the prickle of anger in his fingertips. “And I only suggested coming here because I thought that it would do you good, that you could see some people, get out of the house, the farm,” Gheorghe felt all his frustration and confusion of the last few weeks, John’s temper and unpredictability, spilling out of him in waves. He was defending himself against an accusation that couldn't be less true; defending a childhood bully who was in love with his own partner. The unfairness and bizarreness of it all pressed painfully at his temples. He was shouting now. “I would never do this to you, remember, I . . . _I_ am not the one who has . . .” 

He regretted the words before they’d even left his mouth.

John raised his eyebrows, gritting his teeth, nodding as fury and hurt understanding clouded his expression. “Aye. Suppose I _do_ deserve it, really. Should’ve known you’d want to get back at me at some point . . . fuckin’ Warley, of all folk. Bet you were both havin’ a right laugh, eh?”

Gheorghe felt too angry to cry. He was drowning in it all; how much he loved John, how he would never hurt him, how he’d been hurt _by_ him, how Matt, for all his past cruelty, was still carrying around a dead weight of adoration for this clueless, beautiful person he could never have.

“Fuck you,” he spat, throwing open the door and hurling himself into the passenger seat. 

 

\- - - - - - - - - - -

 

They drove in silence for twenty minutes, gradually passing out of the built-up suburbs and onto hilly elevations; pitch dark country roads that led to the farm, the route in front of them lit only by the beams of their headlights.

Gheorghe stared out of the window at the town lights winking down below in the distance as they passed by, trying to breathe his way out of the feeling of anger, the overwhelming sense of being lonely and confined all at once. He felt a wave of nausea.

“Stop the car,” he growled at John.

“What?!”

“Just stop the car. Please.”

John pulled into a small lay-by that looked directly out onto a view of the town below. He cut the engine, pulling off his seatbelt and spinning to face Gheorghe. “What’s to do?”

“I feel sick. I should not have drank so much. I just need a little air,” Gheorghe sighed, opening the window to let in the dry November chill.

“You only had two beers all night,” John said thickly. They both knew that it had nothing to do with the beer. Gheorghe wasn’t drunk. He was just sad.

Gheorghe sat with the window down, drawing out the minutes, concentrating on the feeling of cold air coming in through his nose, breathing out through his mouth. 

“I shouldn’t’ve said what I said. I’m a fuckin’ prick.” John said eventually, throwing his head back against the car seat and biting his nails.

“Yes.” Gheorghe looked across at John and smiled weakly. 

John smiled timidly back. 

“And I should not have said what _I_ said. I did not mean it. I said it because you were making me angry.” Gheorghe found he had no stomach for an argument, however hurt he was.

“I just . . . I were stood there . . . I didn’t like the way he were all over you. He’s always had it in for me, wouldn’t put owt past him . . .”

Gheorghe could have chuckled at the irony. It was clear that John had no idea that Matt had been far too busy pining for _him_ to make a play for anyone else.

“He was not trying anything like that. He just . . . needed to talk to someone. And anyway, even if he had been . . . John, I cannot make you happy if you won’t trust me. And I don’t think that I can live with making you unhappy. And you have been unhappy recently.”

“D’you mean that? About not wantin' owt else, I mean? That really how you feel?” John stared down at his own calloused hands as he wrung them together.

“You _know_ this is how I feel,” Gheorghe answered, exhausted.

“Aye, but, see, I thought maybe . . . I’ve been thinkin’ lately . . . thought maybe you thought you _had_ to, see back when I tried it on wi’ you that first time, on the hill? Afterwards, like, I thought maybe you thought we’d turn you out if you didn’t go along wi’ it. And I thought maybe we should stop but by then I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop ‘cos . . . fuck’s sake, how can you . . . can’t you _see_ how happy you’re makin’ me?! Don’t you _see_? And I just . . . still can’t believe you wanna be wi’ me. I . . . and I just panicked when you left to go outside tonight, then he followed right behind, and . . . I couldn’t feel me own legs, I were so desperate to find you. And I’m always waitin’ for you to realise you can do better.” 

Gheorghe felt like his head couldn’t keep up with everything that was happening around him. He was sure that he would never understand John in a million years.

“I never did _anything_ with you because I thought that I _had_ to, I would _never_ ," he growled. "And this, tonight . . . I only thought that you wanted space from me. Or, at least, to get away from how our lives are every day. It has been too long since you went out, did anything, and this, it is not healthy. I think it is why you have been very angry with me recently. We spend a lot of time together. It is normal to want space, and I don’t want you to feel that you are bored of me . . .”

“God I fuckin’ _love_ you!” John interrupted, thumping his head against the steering wheel, his voice shaking. “I _love_ you. And I don’t want space from you. You’ve got hold of the wrong end of it all. I don’t wanna be apart from you. I wanna _marry_ you!”

Gheorghe slowly turned his face to John, staring, gobsmacked, feeling the grounding rightness of him and John together in the tug of his heart and the tears in his eyes and the twitch of his cock.  _He wants me to marry him. He wants to marry me._

“Christ.” A fat tear rolled down John’s cheek. “I’ve not been able to think on anythin’ lately except how to ask you, it’s been windin’ me right up. I know I’ve been a pain in the arse, moody like. And you thought I wanted _space?!_ Look, I had all these big ideas, yeah? Bloody impossible ones and soppy ones and stupid ones. Been goin’ round the bend ‘cos I wanted to do it right, didn’t wanna fuck it up, way I always do with everythin’. But this is _me_ , int it? And I end up gettin’ jealous of some wanker at a party, bein' horrible to you and then askin’ you to . . . in the bloody car in a fuckin’ lay-by. Fuck, course that’s how I ask you, after all that,” he laughed bitterly.

Gheorghe’s heart was racing, his grin so wide his jaw ached. “You have not asked me anything,” he said, sounding calmer than he felt.

“What?!”

“You have said . . . some words. But you have not _asked_ me anything.”

Tears were streaming down John’s face now. “Remember, when I said to you that I wanted us to be together? I meant it. Meant it then and I _still_ mean it. And I’m scared because I don’t know if this . . . if it’s what you want. But I want to do it proper, like. You’re the most proper thing I’ve ever had in me life,” he huffed a shuddering breath before turning to look into Gheorghe’s eyes. “Will you marry me?”

“You do not have to do this, yes? I do not _need_ you to do this, for me to stay. I am staying with you anyway . . .”

“Fuck, I _knew_ you’d think it were about that! I’m not tryin’ to lay claim to you or owt. Well, I am. But, not like that, like. I love what you’ve done to me. Even that you’ve turned me soft. Scared the fuck out of me at the start, way it just happened, and then how losin’ you smashed me into bits, but now . . . and you came back and put me back together different, _better_ . . . you made me feel . . .  you made me _feel_. This int me askin’ in a panic, and I’m not tryin’ to make owt right that I’ve done wrong before or to blag me way out of this stupid fuckin’ fight. It’s what I _want_. I’ve wanted it for ages, and now I’ve let it all come out like this. Look, just forget it, forget I said owt . . .”

“John. I am trying to say yes to you but you are still talking.”

John whimpered weakly, sobbing even as they chuckled together, eyes wide with disbelief.

Gheorghe stared in pure wonder. He had never imagined that he would ever struggle to get John to stop speaking, to take a breath between sentences. For the longest time he had rarely spoken in sentences at all. The sight of him rambling with nerves was as incredible as it was funny.

Gheorghe felt words upon words coming, wave upon wave, filling the car with the thoughts and plans and little and big dreams that he had barely dared to voice even to himself till now.

“Yes. I say yes. I want to marry you. Are you listening to me? I cannot understand how lucky I have been. All of the places where I could have gone, and I found you here. And it is _work_ , being together. I want it to work but that means we must try, yes? Must help each other and understand . . .” Gheorghe tripped over his words, his English failing him. “You have been . . . _silent_. Avoiding me. Not talking, yes? I have tried to give you space from me, but . . . I need to ask _you_ a question. Will _you_ marry _me_?”

John laughed tearfully.

“Because I have wanted to ask you for months and I thought . . . I thought it would make you nervous, make you panic, that it was too fast for you, yes? I was afraid that you would think that my interest was in the farm, or to stay here, in this country . . .”

“Don’t seem likely, does that,” John huffed, rolling his eyes, gazing out at the flickering lights of the town in the distance. “Farm’s hardly a gold mine, you know that more than most, and any road, I reckon if you just needed to stay you could . . . well, _look_ at you. Who the fuck could turn _you_ down? You could have just about anyone, couldn’t you? And I were frettin’ over same thing, that you’d think it were too soon, that you’d run a mile, like. But, see, for me, I _know_. I don’t know how else to say it. I just _know_.” Gheorghe could tell John was blushing, even in the darkness of the car. “So yeah. I will.”

Gheorghe bit his lip to keep from crying. “Since I met you, all my plans have had you there with me. When I went to Scotland . . .” he hesitated. Talking about that time in their lives still had a way of souring a good mood. But Gheorghe wanted to get this out. “When I went, I missed you very much, but also I missed a version of my life I thought was now gone forever. That the things that were meant to happen were gone. It was strange that after such a short time, leaving you made all of my life feel empty. I am not explaining myself well . . .”

“Aye you are. Don’t think you know how well you . . . fuck I don’t even like thinkin’ ‘bout way I felt then . . .”

“I am sorry, I know that this upsets you, I’m just trying to . . .”

“I know . . .”

“No, I need to say. You . . . it is _you_. You are my home.”

“I didn’t know meself till I met you. Way you touched me. Made me feel like I’d been hungry for summat me whole life.”

“You will not be hungry again,” Gheorghe whispered, taking John’s hand in his, gentle and chaste as they sat side by side.

“M’sorry about what I said earlier, what I did . . . I were jealous. Stupid."” 

Gheorghe suppressed a smile, his stomach swooping with excitement. “You think Deirdre and Martin will be . . . OK? Happy?” he asked, drawing John towards him, their lips so close, glancing, nearly touching in a kiss.

“Uh, I do yeah,” John answered with a guilty twitch.

Gheorghe raised his eyebrows at him curiously. 

“They _know,_ ” John murmured.

“They know?”

“They know I’ve been tryin’ to ask you.”

Gheorghe nodded. Deirdre and Martin _knew_. It made sense. The way they had been so patient in the face of John’s terrible mood swings. The way they had resisted the temptation to tell him to snap out of it, get his arse in gear, pull himself together.

“I . . . I can’t wait to tell them. They’ll be dead happy,” John whispered, his relief palpable, finally closing the space between them and kissing Gheorghe, trembling, all teeth and tongue and the salt of tears.

“This is good," Gheorghe mused breezily as he pulled away from the kiss, gazing out of the windscreen at the evening unfolding down below. "And then you will need to meet _my_ family.”

He turned his head again, leaning into his seat with laughter at the look of bewildered terror on John’s face.

 

\- - - - - - - - -

 

Deirdre was still up when they reached the farm. She always waited up for them if they were out, even if they wouldn’t be back till an ungodly hour. It made Gheorghe’s heart glow every time, returning to the sight of her staunch, watchful face at the window.

As they sloped into the living room, grinning madly, Gheorghe saw her catch John’s gaze, her expression curious. Hopeful.

John smiled at her, looking sideways at Gheorghe, glassy-eyed and lovestruck. Deirdre smirked back. She pressed a kiss to his forehead, and stunned Gheorghe when she shuffled over and did the same to him.

“Took your precious time, John Saxby,” she chided affectionately over her shoulder as she made her way out of the room to bed. 

When they got into their own bedroom they undressed each other slowly, standing opposite one another completely bare; a full declaration of everything they were offering to each other, something nameless and beautiful and true.

John pulled Gheorghe to him, burrowing himself into his arms, pressing himself into his chest as if he needed to hide, and Gheorghe’s arms were the only sanctuary that could possibly keep him safe. 

 _You are safe with me_ , Gheorghe thought as he cradled John’s head in the palm of his hand. _I will put myself between you and anything or anyone that ever tries to make you unhappy ever again._

A groan rose in Gheorghe's throat as John reached down to glance his fingertips over the length of his cock. John had a language for sex, all skin and touch and breath, ways of telling Gheorghe what he wanted, and how. He closed his fingers around Gheorghe’s hardness, pressing his teeth to the flesh of his shoulder before dropping to his knees to take him in his mouth. Gheorghe's knees weakened as he watched his cock disappear between John’s perfect, moist lips. Again and again and again. John peered up at him, his eyes full of love, pupils blown with desire and a hint of mischief.

“You want me to fuck you?” Gheorghe asked, his voice no more than a whisper.

John licked a thick stripe up the underside of his cock, kissing his way from the base to the head, never once breaking eye contact - _Yes. Fuck me._

John lay on his stomach on their bed while Gheorghe gently opened him up. Slowly, slicked, skilful fingers, one at a time, no rush, as much time as John needed. All the time in the world. The rest of their lives. 

They’d never spoken much during sex, but as Gheorghe slowly pushed the blunt head of his cock inside John, pressing him into the mattress, running the tip of his tongue across the back of his neck and inhaling deeply on his scent, the intensity of everything he was feeling hit him like nothing he’d ever known, John’s name rising unbidden out of somewhere in his chest. “John,” he sighed into his ear as he thrust and thrust, watching as John began to claw at the bedsheets beneath him, loving the way that one short name felt in his mouth as he neared his climax.

John had bottomed with him a few times before he eventually summoned up the courage to admit to Gheorghe that he was the first man he’d done it for; that he was the only one John had ever met that he'd felt close enough to to let himself be vulnerable with in that way. Gheorghe had felt so privileged, so special that he could have sobbed. John still topped more, his need to bottom emerging from moments like tonight, his fits of desperation and grabbing and need, when he felt like the only way he could get close enough to Gheorghe was to take him into his own body. 

Gheorghe knew this now; knew the language of every inch of John.

Pressed so closely together, his chest flush against John’s back, entwining their fingers, Gheorghe was close enough to hear John say the words, so quietly they were little more than his mouth forming the shapes; “I love you,” as Gheorghe’s body spasmed and he emptied himself into him.

 _John_. The man he was going to marry.

Gheorghe moved so that John could lay on his back. He reached to touch John's cock, but John moved his hand away lightly and began bringing himself off, looking straight into Gheorghe’s eyes, urging him to _watch_. His right hand stroked himself hard and fast while the other palmed at the bedsheets and Gheorghe watched the spectacle, the erotic closeness and trust of it all. As John came with a shudder over the planes of his own stomach, Gheorghe stared, enraptured by the way his mouth fell open while his eyes stayed focused on Gheorghe’s own. 

Afterwards, as they lay together, John still trembling and clinging to Gheorghe, his body thrumming with energy, something in Gheorghe’s mind scratched, needing to be let out.

“Matt, he told me that he was unkind to you, when you were at school.”

He felt John flinch next to him. “That’s puttin’ it nicely,” he scowled.

“I believe that he is sorry. I do not believe that this makes it OK,” he added quickly, feeling John tense up and sigh heavily. “I do not think it means you should forgive him. But I do think he really is sorry.”

“He’s a fuckin’ weirdo. Treats me like shit for fuckin’ years, then tries to pull me at a party. Then after that he were even worse . . .” John muttered darkly. “Never knew where you were wi’ him. Fuckin’ psycho.”

“John, he’s . . . he was in love with you.”

“Bollocks.”

Gheorghe chuckled quietly. “You do not have to believe me. As I have said, I do not believe it changes what he did anyway. But he was in love with you and he was hurting and this is why he was so cruel. He is still hurting.”

“Don’t give a shit.” John slurred drowsily, nuzzling his face into Gheorghe’s chest. “Know that probably means I’m as big a prick as he is. But that were then, this is now, and I don’t give a shit about anythin’ else right now. Nowt except this right here. Nowt but you.”

Gheorghe smiled, stroking John’s hair as he relaxed.

He thought for a moment about Matt, wondering what _he_ was doing right now. Numbing himself with more and more beer, probably. Maybe he’d found a willing partner and was pressed up against a wall with him, a soul with nothing to anchor it, wishing he were somewhere else, with someone else.

When at last he heard John’s gentle, purring snores, Gheorghe lay awake in the darkness of their bedroom, sure that he had never felt a more perfect happiness. He touched his lips to John’s sleeping head, thinking back to his brief time in Scotland, how he was tormented by knowing John was alive somewhere where he couldn’t reach out and touch him, and one last thought settled on the seabed of his mind as he followed him into sleep.

_You are easy to love, John Saxby. Easy to love, and so hard to forget._


End file.
